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The parable which stands at the close of the chapter is, unless one is greatly mistaken, directly taken from the romance with little modification. It stands in the whole of Kalila wa Dimna isolated, deviates in manner and tendency entirely from the story and also from what has issued from Ibn Moqaffa but is consistent with the monastic predilections of Burzoe.
Unless I am mistaken the excerpts in this book from Kalila wa Dimna are not always correct. Ibn Qutaiba was concerned more with the sense than with the phraseology of Ibn Moqaffa. My father belonged to the Warrior class, my mother came of an eminent priestly family.
This is that famous book of Calila and Dimna, as the Persian version is called, attributed to Bidpai, and which was thus run to earth in India.
Let this be the prize; whoever beats the other in a race, let him have them all'. 'So be it', said the two fools, and set off running, but Putraka put on the shoes at once, and flew away with the staff and bowl up into the clouds'. Well, this is a story neither in the Pantcha Tantra nor the Hitopadesa, the Sanscrit originals of Calila and Dimna.
That Thaalibi knew the correct distinction between Pahlavi and Persian can be seen from the fact that he says at p. 633 of his history with reference to the book of Kalileh wa Dimna as follows: When Burzuyeh arrived at the court and presented himself before Anushirwan he recounted to him what had happened to him and announced to him as a happy event that he was in possession of the book.
And now to return for a moment to Calila and Dimna and The Seven Sages.
The one, under the original name of the Hitopadesa, remains almost confined to India, while the other, under the title of "Calila and Dimna," has become famous over all western Asia and in all the countries of Europe, and has served as the model of the fables of all languages.
It is especially to be noted that here also as in the trial of Dimna he recounts anecdotes after the Indian fashion.
They translated into prose imitations of the tales such as those of the book of Patronis, borrowing from the general chronicles or in translations like the "Kalila and traditions, legendary or historic, as they found them in the Dimna," or the book of "The Ruses of Women," in verse.
Moreover, Firdausi's poem occasionally betrays that his sources had not flowed to him through Arabic. Of those men one only is met with again, Shahzan son of Barzin. He is mentioned by Firdausi at the head of his account of the genesis of KALILA WA DIMNA: "Listen to what Shahzan, son of Barzin has said when he revealed the secret."
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